


in the end, we all go the same

by ellispage21



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Apocalypse, End of the World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 22:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18600334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellispage21/pseuds/ellispage21
Summary: some of us will be revered, and some forgotten and some of us will sleep out in the rainand some of us will die lonely and others in grace and warmth but in the end we all go the same.





	in the end, we all go the same

It didn’t start like they said it would; like it starts in films. It started, instead, with rain.

 

 

“This is ridiculous,” Grantaire’s mum said from her spot at the window, “almost two months of rain, day in, day out.”

 

“Mm.” He agreed, scratching the side of his head with the end of a pencil, “Mum, do you know how to integrate a polynomial?”

 

“That washing has been sat there for weeks,” she continued, “it’ll have dried all crinkled now. Your dad’s almost out of work shirts. How are you for trousers?”

 

“I think I have to divide it, but I… can’t figure out why.”

 

Sophie appeared, school bag in tow, “Mum, can I have something to eat?”

 

“Yes, darling.” She smiled, “how was school?”

 

“Ugh, boring,” Sophie rolled her eyes and pulled on the fridge door, “PE was cancelled because the netball courts have flooded, it’s like they’re _trying_ to ruin my life.”

 

Grantaire looked up at his mum, still stood looking out onto the street, “Mum. Integration?”

 

“Cathy’s guttering is ruined. It’s pissing it down.”

 

He sighed, scooping up his work and shoving it into his bag, narrowly avoiding his sister throwing her yoghurt lid over his head into the bin.

 

 

 

Next came the heat.

 

The thermometer on the shed had cracked years earlier, stuck forever at 26 degrees. He flicked it with his finger anyway, the sun beating down on the back of his neck.

 

“Have you got sun cream on?” His dad barked from the other side of the garden, hauling another bag of ice from the outside fridge through the French doors.

 

Grantaire nodded, lying, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The heat was relentless, schools all over the country were closed, people couldn’t go into work, public transport was cancelled. The nation had come to a standstill.

 

“Come in now, son. You’ll cook if you stay out here any longer.”

 

He followed his dad into the house, grateful for the air conditioning on full blast, but it still wasn’t enough. The shirt he had changed into only an hour earlier was dripping with sweat, and his hair stuck in clumps to his head.

 

“They’re saying it’s global warming.” His mum said, “All those greenhouse gases floating about.”

 

Grantaire hummed, and took the ice lolly from her outstretched hand, “Joly’s car tires melted to his drive, they’ve had to pop them to move it.”

 

“How’s his mum?”

 

He shrugged, “still unwell. She could get to the end of the path a few weeks ago, but now I’m not sure. I’ll ask when I see him.”

 

“No, it’s alright.” She put a warm hand on his shoulder, “I’ll go over later, I’m taking Sophie to her friend’s house.”

 

“Have you had my cold compress?” His dad asked, leaning one arm on the doorframe.

 

“Ah sorry Dad, I took it to rugby.”

 

“And?”

 

“And then I gave it to Bahorel. For his knee.”

 

His dad huffed, “and what about my bloody knee?”

 

“Sorry Dad.”

 

His mum waited until he’d left the room, and leant closer to Grantaire’s ear, “I’ll buy one of those later as well.”

 

He smiled, getting up from the table, “Thanks, Mum. I better get going now. Éponine will be waiting.”

 

Just as he was closing the door, she shouted “stay in the shade!”

 

 

 

After the heat, the army stepped in.

 

“Sophie, you’re actually taking the piss now.” Grantaire muttered, pushing two of her suitcases off the sofa, “have you got concrete in here?”

 

“I’ve just got the essentials.” She pouted, chucking yet another hairbrush into her bag, “do you want me to have, like, no social life? No friends? No amigos?”

 

“They’re the same word.” He grunted, zipping his own suitcase up with ease, “And we are being evacuated, not going on a sodding holiday.”

 

“Well Mum said that it’ll be _like_ a holiday, didn’t you Mum?”

 

“Can you two just stop bickering? For five minutes? Christ almighty.” His mum called from the hallway, propping the door open with her foot as her husband loaded the car.

 

“Mum, Sophie’s got three suitcases here. We’ll be gone a month at most.”

 

“Right,” she said, letting the door close behind her, “you stop dictating what your sister does, and you pack _one_ suitcase. And if I hear so much as a whisper, I’ll leave both of you here. Understand?”

 

“Yes.” They mumbled in unison, steely glares levelled at one another. Sophie stuck her tongue out, and he rolled his eyes.

 

“Idiot.”

 

“Brat.”

 

 

 

That was then, though. That was before the borders closed, and the governments fell, and the militia took global power. Before the end of days was confirmed by thousands of scientists. Before the panic set in.

 

Grantaire’s hands were low on the steering wheel, his left hand still aching from the fight he had over some rice. The sacks sat in the back seat, damp from the rain that pelted down on him. The trees on the side of the makeshift road shuddered in the wind, and the mountain peaks broke through the clouds. If he stared straight ahead, he could maybe pretend it was fine. That everything was normal, and he was driving to his suburban home, back to his normal, nuclear family. Thunder rolled overhead as the rain lashed harder against the windscreen, the army blockade approaching in front of him.

 

“Not today.” He whispered to himself, “Not today, not for me _please_.”

 

A soldier no older than him flagged him down, and he swore under his breath.

 

“Weapons?”

 

Grantaire shook his head, “no, sir.”

 

“Diseased?”

 

“No.”

 

“No?” The solider lifted an eyebrow, the barrel of his gun just visible under the car window.

 

“No, sir.”

 

He was waved through in silence, and finally exhaled the breath he didn’t realise he had been holding in.

 

 

 

“They’re saying the war is elsewhere.” Courfeyrac announced, the radio almost glued to his ear, “That we should all be out now.”

 

“There’s a blockade about six miles away, on the main road from the town.” Grantaire said, lifting the rice sack up onto the table, “I went to rugby with the guard.”

 

Enjolras shook his head, “That road is off, then. We can’t risk it.”

 

He shrugged, “He let me through,” motioning to himself as though it wasn’t obvious, “so it can’t be that risky.”

 

“He let _you_ through. Did any of _us_ go to rugby?”

 

Grantaire shrugged again, “I’m just saying. No need to have a go at me.”

 

Enjolras turned, throwing himself dramatically onto a half-empty beanbag and busying himself with a map. Grantaire could see him scribbling out the main road. He sighed.

 

 

 

They made their own rules here, with a mud river running outside and Gavroche’s loose teeth hanging from strings in the doorway, ready for the Tooth Fairy to collect when she came. There’s no electricity, no heating, just five teenagers and a little boy in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere. Grantaire was the oldest, at seventeen. Gavroche, only six.

 

He thought briefly of Sophie when Gavroche lost his first tooth, their joy mirrored although years apart. When Gavroche trapped a firefly in a jar, he thought of Sophie’s bedroom ceiling, of the glow-in-the-dark stars tacked in the shapes of constellations.

 

Marius pushed open the door, with a wind-ravaged face and red-knuckled hands. He carried metal buckets in each hand, filled to the brim with rainwater.

 

Grantaire forced a smile, and patted the rice, “got us some dinner.”

 

Marius smiled, a genuine one, and bent down to relieve his hands. “Thanks! I’ll see if we can find some meat or something.”

 

Enjolras spoke from his corner, “no point. We’ve no gas anymore, ran out this morning.”

 

“So...”

 

“So, if you want to die of salmonella Marius, be my guest. But I think I’ll give it a miss.”

 

 

 

As the evening drew closer, Grantaire settled in. He was on watch that night, so it would be a long eight hours alone with his thoughts. He could see Combeferre helping Marius in the kitchen, remembering how he had knelt in the autumn bushes to wipe blackberry juice off of Marius’ sweaty hands two years earlier. Enjolras sat heavily beside him, pen stained up to his wrists.  


“Thank you. For the rice.”

 

Grantaire offered him a small smile, “it’s alright. I was sick of beans.”

 

Enjolras laughed quietly, “yeah. Me too.”

 

“You know, we can’t be the only ones left.”

 

“I know,” Enjolras nodded, “there’s the army, too.”

 

“No. I mean people like us. Normal people.”

 

A silence fell over them as they both thought about it. Grantaire meant what he said, but he wasn’t entirely sure he believed it. Enjolras balled his hands up in the linen of his shirt.

 

“If there are, they’ll want to take everything from us.”

 

“Let them try.” Grantaire said softly, stooping his head so they made eye contact. He saw a flicker of hope behind Enjolras’ eyes, and then watched it disappear just as quickly. He stood and brushed the dust off his knees, while Grantaire settled his focus on the setting sun on the horizon.

 

 

 

It was September when they took the children. The camps that had sprung up all over the country were overwhelmed, families living three to a room. One night, over the PA system, they announced that the following morning the children would be taken to makeshift boarding schools. Sophie had been so excited, packing her bag full of clothes and books to show the others. Their parents argued that night, over whether they should send Grantaire too. At sixteen, he was in the liminal period between boy and man; unable to fend for himself but expected to pull his weight.

 

In the end, the soldiers pulled him out of the line and shoved him back into his parents’ arms. Sophie had been the first to queue, her glittery purple backpack reflecting the sequins onto the ground like tiny stars. She was beaming as they opened the gates and waved to them until she was out of sight. His mum cried long after she was gone.

 

When Grantaire escaped over the fence, he followed the stream through the forest to a clearing, where he spotted something glinting in the dirt. Nudging it loose with his foot, he saw faded purple staring sadly up at him. His dinner from the night before came back up quicker than he expected.

 

 

 

As the moon made its slow arc across the sky, Grantaire stretched back into the hammock he had tied up in the garden. He picked at his scabbed knuckles, listening to the crickets sing in the night’s heat. A noise behind him was startling, and he rolled to the side, ready for combat.

 

“It’s just me,” Marius said softly, “Sorry. I thought you might be asleep.”

 

Grantaire shook his head and relaxed again, “nah. Just thinking.”

 

Marius didn’t ask, which he was grateful for in a way. They sat together in vaguely comfortable silence, the day’s heat ebbing away from them like the tide.

 

“Do you think it will hurt?”

 

Grantaire closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, “maybe.”

 

They had had conversations like this before, back when it seemed more pressing, more urgent.

 

“You’re not scared?” Marius’ voice was quiet and steady, strangely comforting.

 

“We all have to die one day.”

 

“I’m not scared either.” He continued, though Grantaire felt the air shift, “I just want to see my family again.”

 

Without a word, Grantaire stood, pulling Marius inside by the hand. He dug through the piles of paper filling the dusty piano bench – maps, blueprints, shopping lists – to find a yellowed copy of exercises from the 1960s. The keys hummed under his fingers, vibrating up into his bones. The night was still and silent outside. He thought of his parents, of his old house, of Marius’ family diseased and bedridden as he wept and promised to find help. In typical Marius fashion, he had been too late.

 

The end of the world was coming, had been on its way for a year, and they were just basking in the shadow of it. Death is only a word, a kind of quiet. He played gently and felt a presence behind him. Marius had tears in his eyes. He thought of Sophie’s purple backpack.

 

 

 

“There’s an amaranth in the garden.” Combeferre tells him, a mouth full of dry cereal, “Did you know that the Greeks thought amaranths symbolised immortality?”

 

“How ironic.” Grantaire mumbled, setting a saucepan of water on to boil.

 

Outside in the distance, a host of dust-coloured sparrows tore into flight. Gavroche knelt in the grass, digging in the mud with a stick. Grantaire thought of him shaking his parents, his sisters, tears in his eyes and the innocence of youth ripped from his heart like refugees from a war-torn country.

 

He opened the door slowly, “come on in now,” he called, “you can play in here.”

 

Gavroche looked up, soil smeared on his cheek and smiled. He ran in, arms outstretched like the planes that would fly overhead intermittently, looking for any survivors.

 

“The moon is on fire!” He said, eyebrows raised in amusement. Grantaire laughed, “that’s the sun, you little rascal.”

 

It occurred to him that Gavroche was only four when the world fell apart. When Sophie was four, she fell off her bicycle and split her knee open on the pavement. All the blood she’d ever known broke through the skin and seeped into that bright pink plaster. He glanced down at the little boy, who had taken a wooden spoon and was running it along the radiator pipes.

 

He never really knew how the apocalypse was meant to look, but he didn’t think it would be like this.

 

 

 

“They’re exhuming limbs from rubble again.” Courfeyrac murmured, to himself more than to anyone else. “And fishing still-warm bodies from rivers.”

 

‘That’s enough.” Combeferre said sharply, motioning to Gavroche.

 

“Can I have some toast?”

 

Grantaire got onto his knees, “how about we have toast tomorrow? We can have cereal today.”

 

“Okay.” Gavroche agreed, turning back to his make-shift instrument. He smiled sadly.

 

 

 

At around midday, he went out to the river. It had long since dried up and caked into mud, but he stripped off anyway and shivered in the cold. Looking up, he saw swallows flying overhead in their ancient arrowhead. Everything had been taken away too quickly, but he was still there. One day, the swallows would come for him, and he would be able to tell his family about every beautiful thing he had seen since they’d left.

 

 

 

Enjolras was sat on top of the dilapidated washing machine in the cellar, kicking his feet and humming as he read a book. His ragged trainers had holes in the toes and his jeans were way too short, but he never seemed to notice.

 

“Good afternoon.” Grantaire said, passing by him to rummage for a first-aid kit for Gavroche’s grazed elbow.

 

“I had a dream about my dad last night.”

 

Grantaire froze.

 

“He told me he had been sober for one hundred and forty-four days.”

 

“Right.” Grantaire said slowly, unsure of how to continue the conversation.

 

“I’m telling you just so you know. In case you need to talk to someone.”

 

He swallowed, “thanks. Hope you’re alright.”

 

Enjolras shrugged and re-focussed on his book. Grantaire realised the discussion had come to an end.

 

 

 

Marius burst through the door, simultaneously relieved and surprised to see Grantaire sitting by himself.

 

“Are you okay?” He frowned, putting down the knife he was using to pick at his nails.

 

“Can you… I really need you to come outside.”

 

“…Okay.”

 

 

A girl his age stood on the front step, with a blonde ponytail and pink shorts. He shot a confused look at Marius, who was avoiding both of their gazes.

 

“Hi.” The girl said, smiling but nervous, “I’m-”

 

“This is Cosette.” Marius blurted, shoving his hands into his pockets.

 

“Hi… Cosette.” Grantaire squinted, “Can I just respectfully ask what the fuck is going on right now?”

 

“I-”

 

“We met when I was collecting water, and she lives further down the river, and she has a family down there R, I told you there were other people, and—”

 

“Alright,” He said, holding one hand up, “Enough, I don’t care. I want to know exactly why she’s on our front step.”

 

“I came to offer help.” Cosette told him, a hint of sunburn visible on her cheeks.

 

“We’re alright.”

 

“Bu-”

 

“Marius. If you could come into the house with me now, please. It was nice to meet you Cosette.”

 

 

 

“I’m going.”

 

“I know.” Grantaire said without looking up, “that’s why I’m helping you pack.”

 

“You’re…”

 

“Helping you pack.” He finished, fishing Marius’ bag out from under his bed, “roll up your blankets.”

 

Marius watched in stunned silence for a few seconds, then obediently did as he was told, rolling and folding his belongings neatly.

 

“What will you tell the others?” He asked quietly, “That I’ve abandoned you all like a coward?”

 

“I’ll tell them you will be back soon.”

 

“But—”

 

“I will tell them.” Grantaire said heavily, not taking his eyes off the task at hand, “That you will be back soon.”

 

Marius sank back into the silence that filled the room, diligently balling up his socks.

 

“I hope that I see you again.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“And that, if I don’t... then I’ll see you up there.”

 

“You will.” Grantaire told him, shoving the bag into his arms, “Now take this, and get out.”

 

“I—”

 

“Go. You’re the only one of us who could be happy when it happens. So go. You’ve got to live for all of us now.”

 

Marius nodded, tears in his eyes, bag in his trembling hands.

 

He stood against the door to keep it open, and watched Marius disappear down the beaten track. When he turned around to wave, Grantaire had already gone inside.

 

 

 

“Has anyone seen Marius?” Combeferre asked at dinner, ladling gruel into chipped enamel bowls, “he went off this early this morning.”

 

Enjolras’ eyes lit up with panic, “and nobody has heard from him?”

 

“Yeah, I saw him.” Grantaire said casually, voice thick, “he’ll be back soon.”

 

“Soon?” Enjolras raised an eyebrow.

 

He looked up to Enjolras with hard eyes, “yep. He will be back soon.”

 

Courfeyrac sucked in an audible breath and coughed to disguise it.

 

“Right.” Enjolras said slowly, dipping his spoon into the bowl, “well. I look forward to seeing him, then.”

 

 

 

Damp sheets hung on the washing line as Gavroche pretended to be a Russian astronaut, hands brushing against the tall grass around him. Grantaire sat near him, on the bank of the creek with the taste of copper in his mouth.

  
“Are you afraid?” Gavroche asked suddenly, coming back down from the stars.

 

“I think everyone is a little bit afraid sometimes.”

 

“I’m not.” He said, almost proudly, “not even in the dark.”

 

“Not even when there’s a thunderstorm?”

 

“Nope.” Gavroche giggled, and began to roll around in the dirt, “ahhh! My rocket is going to crash!”

 

Grantaire smiled to himself and wondered how much horror that child had lived through. He decided he never wanted to find out.

 

 

 

The night grew heavy like it always did, and Grantaire was one day older, had one day less to live. The sky grew so wide it was like a cavern, and they were somewhere underneath it, lost. But travellers always leave lanterns behind, and as he felt for the candle, he dreamt of a bronze-coloured light. One word crystallised like sugar in his mouth: hope.

 

 

 

“Good morning.”

 

“Morning,” Enjolras said, voice hoarse, “I saw Marius yesterday.”

 

Grantaire tried his hardest not to look surprised, “you did?”

 

“He smelled like my dad’s favourite coffee, and sawdust. Said it felt nice to be in a home with some real adults.”

 

“Do you know where they are?”

 

Enjolras shook his head, “no. And I’ve got it on good authority they don’t know where we are either. I don’t want our supplies stolen.”

 

Grantaire thought of the packet noodles, the Weetabix, the rice he had to fight for. He hadn’t eaten a proper, warm meal in nearly a year. To think that sixteen months ago, he was worried about his Spanish quiz, or his geography essay.

 

He said nothing, and Enjolras didn’t push on with the conversation, instead riffling through the drawers.

 

“Uh…” He began quizzically, “have you seen the big knife?”

 

“No.” Grantaire said without really thinking about it, “have you looked in the sink?”

 

“Yeah. Hm. I’ll see if it’s in the other room.”

 

He nodded, not looking up from the table until Enjolras was out the door, and then letting his gaze rest on the trees on the far side of the field behind the house. He heard a slam somewhere and watched as Enjolras ran through the grass. Something inside him knew he should be panicked, but he wasn’t. Not until he saw him drop to his knees.

 

 

 

Nettles bit at his ankles and mud flicked up his legs as he tore across the field, chest burning from the sudden start. As he drew closer, he saw Enjolras’ shoulders heaving, and heard the wracked sobs torn from his throat. The grass around him was red.

 

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Was all he could say.

 

Enjolras had blood all over his hands, Gavroche laid out in front of him, the cruel silver of a bullet buried in his sternum. Just beneath the skin, there had been a small heart beating, and Combeferre had taught him what each artery was called. Had shown him on a little bird why the heart was the most important part of the body, because it keeps you alive, and because it feels, and it loves, and it forgives.

 

 

It had been Courfeyrac to wrestle Enjolras inside, to sacrifice some of Marius’ secret cocoa powder to make a hot chocolate so maybe he’d stop shaking so much. Combeferre studied Gavroche intently, while Grantaire held onto his hand. It had been warm when he got there, but he knew the only warmth now was his own.

 

“Looks like an army bullet.” Combeferre mused, so easily detached from the situation in the cold, clinical way he approached death.

 

“Right.”

 

“Would have been quick, I imagine. I didn’t hear it though.”

 

“They’ve got silencers now,” Grantaire reminded him, “so people don’t get worried.”

 

“Ah, you’re right.”

 

“Are we going to bury him?”

 

Combeferre nodded, “I think we probably should. I’ll go and get a blanket.”

 

“And a spade!” Grantaire called after him, to which he received a thumbs up.

 

 

He stroked Gavroche’s pale cheek and willed the tears to fall but they wouldn’t. They had long since dried up. In a way, he was glad that Gavroche had gone like this – playing in the garden, happy and free like children should be. He wouldn’t have felt the bullet hit him.

 

“Listen,” he stage-whispered, “do you remember when we learnt about caterpillars? And how their bodies completely dissolve when they become a cocoon? That’s you now. You’ve become this little shell, and inside you there’s a butterfly ready to come out. And you’ll fly far, far, far away.”

 

He heard Combeferre begin to trudge up from the house.

 

“You don’t have to live in this shitty world anymore, Gav. You can go up and up and up until you can’t go up anymore, and then you’ll see everyone.”

 

The footsteps drew closer.

 

“And soon, I’m not sure when but soon, I’ll be there. And you can show me all your friends. And we can play and do everything we want. Be as loud as we want, and eat ice cream all the time, and fizzy sweets that make your nose wrinkle.”

 

Combeferre laid a hand on his shoulder, and Grantaire looked up at him, eyes shining.

 

“Ready?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

 

 

“Hi.” Grantaire said softly, approaching Enjolras with caution. Snot littered his sleeve.

 

“Hello.” He mumbled, turning away from him to wipe his eyes.

 

“Are you-”

 

“I’ve never... I’ve never seen someone.. Like that.”

 

Grantaire nodded and crossed his arms. He didn’t really know what to say.

 

“Come here.”

 

Enjolras glanced back, confused. His eyes were sore and red.

 

“Come on.” Grantaire repeated, holding out one hand.

 

He stood shakily and stepped forward. Grantaire pulled him closer, though not too close, and smiled sadly. He shifted his balance from one foot to the other, slowly at first but increasing the pace so that Enjolras rocked too.

 

“What are we doing?”

 

“We’re dancing.”

 

Enjolras laughed quietly and ducked his head. Through the window, Grantaire could see the evening light bathing the fields around them in a film of burnished gold.

 

“It won’t always hurt.” He whispered, and Enjolras nodded, curls brushing against Grantaire’s cheek.

 

“It can’t,” he said, “because we haven’t got long left.”

 

Grantaire didn’t reply but drew him tighter and swayed them both gently from left to right. They were just two boys at dusk, ripping the ‘fragile’ stickers off their hearts and teaching themselves to run again in the apocalyptic heat.

 

 

 

“Are you awake?” Courfeyrac whispered into the darkness, and Grantaire turned to face him. He could see his silver outline framed by the moonlight through the dusty window pane.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Sorry if you were sleeping but I just needed to talk.”

 

He continued, “I was thinking about Gavroche. It scares me to realise how easily they could do that to a child. There are so many evil people on this earth.”

 

“I know.”

 

“I miss him.”

 

“Me too, Courf. Me too.”

 

 

 

That night, he dreamt that in the field where Gavroche had been, there was a beating heart on fire. He took it into his hands and bit into it, and it tasted like petrol and blood. He woke up with a shock, sweat running down his back, full of emptiness and the cold. But the memory of the heat was his to hold.

 

 

At 4am, Grantaire awoke from his restless sleep. He leant out of the open bedroom window, feeling the chill of the night on his skin. His chest was heavy as he looked up at the buried stars, the air singing with oncoming rain. The sky was beginning to break open with light, and he let his eyes close again. Beside him, Enjolras snored softly, fidgeting as he slept. Grantaire watched on with a small smile.

 

 

This time a year ago, he ate a huge slice of birthday cake, chocolate and yellow icing. His sister laughed, and his mum fussed around him with a napkin to wipe the crumbs from his face. His dad leant against the wall with a beer bottle in his hand and winked at him, lifting it in salutation. The kitchen danced with the smell of the lavender spray his mum always used, and his friends, laughing, fell through the door.

 

“Happy birthday to me.” He whispered to himself and watched as the world around him dreamt of a better time. He lay in his bed, wanting nothing more than to go home.

 

 

Grantaire hauled himself out of bed early. He was going to the abandoned supermarket that Enjolras had banned them from. The drive was calm, nothing out of the ordinary. The blockade was empty, soldiers asleep in their barracks, and the automatic doors were still smashed in.

 

He stood between the peaches and the avocados, rotten to their cores, running his calloused fingers over where the plastic packaging had given way. He hummed a song to himself and thought about Sophie. If he tried hard enough, the supermarket was full, and he had his phone in one hand, a basket in the other.

 

She would have been going back to school soon, a mess of dark hair and freckles and bubble-gum. He hurried down the milk aisle, still singing softly and thought of her. He wandered down to the checkouts, ringing up the shopping and making the beeping noises himself. Sophie would have been eating all the raspberries from the trolley, squashing the bread with a bottle of orange juice. He looked over at where she would have been, and whispered, “come with me” as he walked out into the morning light.

 

 

 

Courfeyrac shook him when he opened the front door as the sun cracked over the horizon, frantic and afraid.

 

“Grantaire, they think it’s today. It’ll be today.”

 

“What’s today?”

 

“ _It!_ It’s going to be today - look!” He pointed out of the window, hand shaking.

 

Grantaire followed his finger and saw the moon and the sun in the sky, side by side.

 

“Shit.”

 

“We’ve got to get everyone up!”

 

Grantaire’s heart was surprisingly steady, “it’s okay,” he put a gentle hand on Courfeyrac’s arm, “let them sleep. I’ll stay up with you.”

 

 

In another universe, Grantaire would be an eighteen-year-old boy with an awful hangover, head stuck with cold sweat to the kitchen table as his mum folded laundry. The summer heat wouldn’t feel razor-sharp or ready to wound. His mum would laugh, and he would groan.

 

But in this universe, Grantaire was an eighteen-year-old boy with hands that had held too many dying people, and eyes that had witnessed too much tragedy. He was trapped inside that life like a splinter stuck in a fingernail.

 

 

 

The sky was silver, and the air churned outside. Combeferre woke first, padding softly into the kitchen to eat some dry noodles.

 

“Good morning,” he yawned, “sleep well?”

 

Before Grantaire could answer, Courfeyrac leapt through the room, “It’s happening.”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Today. It’s going to happen today.”

 

“Okay,” Combeferre nodded, munching loudly, “nice day for it, I suppose.”

 

“You’re not scared?” Courfeyrac tipped his head to the side, voice rising in confusion.

 

He shrugged, pushing his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose with his thumb, “this has been our fate since before we were even born. All stars burn and die eventually.”

 

“I—”

 

“What we aren’t going to do,” he continued, pausing in between his mouthfuls, “is tell Enjolras.”

 

Courfeyrac reeled back as though he had been hit, mouth agape.

 

“I second that.” Grantaire nodded, “he’ll panic.”

 

“As he should!” Courfeyrac protested, face going red with indignance.

 

“Who should?”

 

All three turned to the door, where Enjolras stood in his faded, loose pyjamas, the collar completely torn off.

 

“I should.” Grantaire volunteered, “I should do more around the house.”

 

Enjolras frowned sleepily and sank into a chair, “I guess.”

 

 

 

“Would you like to sit in the field with me?” Enjolras asked, rising up onto his tiptoes and back down again.

 

Grantaire looked up from the newspaper he was reading, “now?”

 

Enjolras nodded, hands clasped behind his back like a child.

 

“Sure.”

 

 

 

It was mid-afternoon, and if he didn’t know it was his last day on Earth, Grantaire would have thanked God for weather so beautiful. The sky was clear for the first time in a long time, and the gentle breeze combed through his hair like his mum’s fingers.

 

“You know what I miss,” Enjolras said from nowhere, “is how loudly we used to shout and laugh and talk. Before everything went to shit. I was so loud.”

 

“You were.” Grantaire chuckled, “But you’re being kind of loud now.”

 

“I know.” He shrugged, “Today I don’t care. I feel calm for the first time.”

 

“That’s good.”

 

“I think it will happen today.” He confessed, biting his lip and deliberately not looking at Grantaire.

 

“Maybe.”

 

As the evening rolled in for the final time, they stayed seated in the grass, their shadows stretched out, touching the house.

 

“Did you know there are a hundred billion stars in the galaxy?”

 

Grantaire cocked his head to the side, “who told you that?”

 

“Gavroche. Who learnt it from Combeferre.”

 

He nodded, “Must be true then… Have you ever thought about where all the particles went after the Big Bang?”

 

“After the—”

 

“Because my little sister, her name was Sophie, she told me they went everywhere, trees and oceans and clouds and smoke. Humans too. Isn’t that cool?”

 

Enjolras watched him with soft eyes and nodded, smiling.

 

“What was it like to have a sibling?”

 

Grantaire leant back on his arms and let the sun shine onto his face, “We hardly ever got on. She was always taking my stuff, or I was eating her leftovers, or she was switching the channel when I was watching it. That kind of thing. She was so annoying.”

 

“Do you miss her?” He asked gently, reaching a hand out to thread through Grantaire’s.

 

“More than anything.” He whispered, eyes full of tears.

 

“Someone will remember us,” Enjolras said, brushing his thumb over the back of Grantaire’s hand, “Us, and them,” he gestured indoors, “and Sophie, and all our families and everyone.”

 

“Do you reckon?”

 

He nodded, “Someone will. Even in another time.”

 

 

 

It didn’t end like they said it would either; it ended like it started, with rain.

 

Thunderous sheets of rain poured down over them, a baptism of sorts, before the eternal nothingness. A cosmic ache in the shadows between Grantaire’s lungs bubbled up inside him, something a lot like fear but not quite.

 

They stood together in the garden, all four of them hand in hand. Courfeyrac clutching Marius’ jumper, determined to take a piece of him wherever they were going next. Around his neck, Grantaire wore the string of Gavroche’s teeth.

 

They watched the stars fall one by one, soaked down to the bone. Lightning cracked over their heads, one third of the sky already empty. Grantaire thought of his parents, how they went side by side into the pit, bullets lodged in their skulls. He thought of Sophie and smiled up at the sky.

 

“Soon.” He whispered.

 

The stars began to fall faster, and he wondered where they went. Whether one was going to crater the fields around them or smash through the house. There was no noise but the rumble of rain as it hit the ground. He couldn’t hear himself breathing anymore, though his chest caught against his sodden t-shirt every so often.

 

There were lights in the far-off distance, so far away he had to strain to see them. So far away it could have been a star crash-landing just the same.

 

The light grew closer as the skied emptied itself out, like a toddler shaking a box of crayons upside down until they all roll under the sofa.

 

 

The water was up to their shins as the light became blinding, and he closed his eyes as the last three stars shuddered and fell away.

 

“Do you think it will hurt?” Enjolras asked, taking a deep breath.

 

Grantaire gripped his hand tighter as the burning white overcame them, “I hope not.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i have 4 essays and 6 exams to revise for, so i did this instead :))


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